Kremer Does Justice To Mozart

December 04, 1991|By John von Rhein, Music critic.

For some listeners, the Mozart year could not have ended too soon. Not that the music itself was to blame; that, of course, will remain forever unimpeachable. The problem is that too many hastily prepared or crassly packaged performances offered in the name of St. Amadeus have deprived the anniversary of much of its artistic dignity, importance and, yes, joy. When everything is a Boffo Mozart Event, nothing is.

Caring ears fortunately could find solace in the Mozart celebration presented by Gidon Kremer and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie on the eve of the 200th anniversary of the composer`s death. The violinist and his expert young colleagues from Frankfurt began their U.S. tour Tuesday night at Orchestra Hall with the first of two Chamber Music Chicago programs devoted to the five Mozart violin concertos.

The highly original format of Tuesday`s concert flew in the face of the bland routine that has marked so many other Mozart bashes. Kremer surrounded three Mozart concertos (No. 2 in D, K.211; No. 3 in G, K.216; No. 4 in D, K.218) with Viennese music from Beethoven to the present. His program on Wednesday, which will hold the first and last concertos, plus works by the Russian-emigre Arthur Lourie, promises to be every bit as provocative. A postconcert party will wrap everything up.

Does familiar music sound more meaningful in unfamiliar contexts? It certainly did Tuesday. I found the unpretentious charm of the 19-year-old Mozart`s three violin works remarkably cleansing when placed alongside Beethoven`s glowering ``Grosse Fuge`` (in an arrangement for string orchestra by Felix Weingartner) and a tiny atonal canon by Alban Berg, transcribed by Alfred Schnittke for solo violin and nine strings.

Kremer`s approach to Mozart, like this deeply thoughtful musician himself, is not easy to categorize.

His performances were lean, crisp and buoyant, attentive to Mozartean orthodoxy in a manner some would call ``authentic.`` Because the soloist engaged his musicians not as subjects but as partners in exploration, the simple melodic lines moved with the crackling fluency of a discourse among cultivated friends.

Moreover, his careful regard for stylistic niceties told in the little fillips (grace notes, even a passage of left-hand pizzicati) he added to the solo parts. He used not the bad old Romantic cadenzas but handsome new ones by Robert Levin that respected the Mozartean spirit even if one or two of them spoke a harmonic language that wasn`t Mozart`s. The finales were wonderfully springy with the spirit of 18th Century popular dance.

But if these readings eschewed empty virtuosity, they also had their share of idiosyncrasy. In the concerto K.216 the violinist had everyone imitating his strongly accented down-bows, a mannerism one found a bit trying. The clipped appoggiaturas he brought to the Adagio of the same work also seemed a mite precious. Kremer clearly wanted us to regard these pieces with something of the same ``shock of the new`` that had greeted Mozart`s Salzburg public in the 1770s. Viewed in that regard, his occasional exaggerations were defensible.

The one thing that could not be denied was the splendid give-and-take between Kremer and the Kammerphilharmonie. Young, multinational, self-governing and largely self-supporting, this is a chamber orchestra the world needs to hear; I hope Chicago gets to experience them again. Among their 25 regular members one could spot three Chicago guests, including CSO flutists Richard Graef and Walfrid Kujala.

The Estonian Arvo Part`s ``Fratres,`` combining Vivaldian flourishes and Zenlike serenity, served as the encore to a generously filled evening of musical discovery.